Kids jumpin’ as ski cross racer readies for Games

Danielle Poleschuk (file photo).

Photograph by: Handout
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CALGARY — For her first speaking engagement as an Olympic team member, ski cross racer Danielle Poleschuk had a gymnasium full of grade schoolers eagerly jumping and shouting with her every move while watching a video of a recent competition.

“I want you to jump every time you see me jump,” Poleschuk told the children at Calgary’s Nellie McClung Elementary School following recess Monday morning.

On command, they leaped and hollered all the way through.

A Calgarian who was born and raised in Winnipeg, Poleschuk found out she made the team for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics on Jan. 24, the day after she turned 24.

She leaves for B.C. on Wednesday, but took an opportunity with teammate Stanley Hayer and Canada Ski Cross president Cam Bailey to do a little public relations with an enthusiastic young crowd.

“My mom’s a teacher and I grew up with a lot of cousins, so I know how to handle kids,” says Poleschuk.

Poleschuk is in outer orbit at the moment, having been named to the Olympic team during only her second year competing in an event only just added to the Olympic lineup.

When veteran teammate Aleisha Cline fell out of the top 12 at the ski cross World Cup in Lake Placid on Jan. 24 and Poleschuk finished in the top eight, she earned her ticket.

“It’s pretty surreal,” says Poleschuk. “I found out halfway through the race. I was shaking, I had trouble focusing the rest of the race, but it’s pretty crazy and pretty cool to think I’m going to Olympics.”

Cline, a Calgary-born, 39-year-old mother of two living in Squamish, B.C., won the Cypress Mountain World Cup last year and finished fifth at the 2009 World Cup finals. She also has four gold medals and a silver from X-Games competition.

Prior to taking up ski cross, Poleschuk was a downhill skier who was in the national program for two years. She changed sports after failing to make the national team.

“It’s pretty crazy. Last year, I just wanted to get my feet wet and to learn. Now I’m going to the Olympics,” she says. “I’ve used what I learned last year and I’ve continued to build on it each race. But I still have so much to learn.”

While Poleschuk said last year her plan was just to get her feet wet in the sport, she’d like to make it to the podium in Vancouver.

“You don’t go to the Olympics just to go, you go to try and win,” she says. “I haven’t made a finals yet, so that would be unreal to.”